Some times programmers who work in a project for long time tend to get institutionalized. It is difficult to convince them with reasoning. Even if we manage to convince them they will be adamant to take suggestion on board. How do we handle the situation without developing friction in team?

Institutionalized in terms of practices. I recently joined in a project where build &release process was made so complicated with unnecessary roadblocks. My suggestion was we can get rid of some of the development overheads(like filling few spreadsheets) just by integrating defect management and version controlling tools (both are IBM-Rational tools integration can be very easy and one-off effort). Also by using tools like Maven & Ant (project involves java and some COTS products) build & release can be simplified and reduce manual errors& intervention. I managed to convince and ready to put efforts for developing proof of concept. But the ‘Senior’ developer is not willing to take it on board. One reason could be the current process makes him valuable in team.